The use of air jets to dry hands is well known. Examples of hand dryers which emit at least one air jet through a slot-like opening are shown in GB 2249026A, JP 2002-034835A and JP 2002-306370A. However, in practice it is very difficult to achieve an evenly distributed airflow of sufficiently high momentum to dry the user's hands efficiently in an acceptably short length of time. The prior art does not achieve this.